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Horse, Dream, Man, Helsinki 1980

Early morning and only street sweepers and a lone policeman are in view. The cop is Scandinavian, upright, descended from generations of straight men and women and he’s so bold he appears like a mythological extension of his horse, some god risen from an animal’s back. I don’t see well and have to draw near to find he’s a horseman and when I’m very close I hear the man talking gently, so quietly he’s like that ancient father we all long for, the horse father.

“My good girl,” he says, “my creeper, my softy hooved…”

“Lord,” I think, “he’s James Joyce.”

He says: “Girlie it’s a pinkpink morning.”

Says: “Experience, experience, it’s all in us.”

I’m walking home after a night of carousing. I’m 25, heartily youthful, so in love with the world my lips twitch, and in the coming years I’ll often talk to myself.

“You’re horse is beautiful,” I say, peering upward in rosy air. The horse is very tall and the man is tall and they are far above in emerging light.